Family's Williams Township home slated for waste zone

Couple, other residents are expected to oppose zoning change at a hearing tonight.

June 23, 2009|By Christopher Baxter OF THE MORNING CALL

Few times during the past two years have Teresa and Michael Muretta had time to sit down, take a deep breath and unwind. They've lost three family members since 2007, and with work and their own health problems, life at their one-story ranch in Williams Township has been a bit of a blur.

So one day in mid-May, the couple decided to have some fun and search their names on the Internet. They were shocked to learn their home was slated to become part of a new solid waste district, one that would allow the neighboring landfill to expand within a few hundred feet of their front door.

"We were absolutely outraged," said Teresa Muretta, whose home is currently zoned residential. "We're average Joes. We go to work every single day. You're sick? It doesn't matter. We sat there and thought, "Well, if this is the case, why have we been working so hard to maintain our home?"'

With concerns ranging from health and safety to the character of their rural neighborhood, the Murettas and a pack of Williams residents are expected at a hearing tonight to oppose the rezoning of Chrin Brothers Sanitary Landfill and 22 acres eyed for expansion.

The meeting marks yet another turn in a saga that since December 2007 has pitted township supervisors against a persistent group of homeowners who have stormed township meetings and filed a series of lawsuits to keep the landfill at bay.

"I have no expectation that they will vote against this zoning change, since they initiated it," said Kathy Lilley, spokeswoman for the Committee to Save Williams Township, a group opposed to the landfill expansion. "Considering all the information they've been presented with, it's beyond frustrating that they haven't acknowledged any of it."

Supervisors Sally Hixson, Robert Doerr and Fred Mebus could not be reached for comment Monday.

The trio in October approved a court settlement that included rezoning the landfill in exchange for higher annual fees. The township tapped $1 million of reserve money, or one third of its total spending, to balance this year's budget, and supervisors are banking on Chrin's money to cover the losses and any future budget deficits.

But the committee and other residents argue the deal puts the company's interests above the well-being of the community.

Muretta admits her home was a "fixer-upper" when she and her husband bought it in 1998. At the time, she said, a thick plot of trees blocked any view of the landfill, and though garbage occasionally floated into their yard, they didn't mind their neighbor.

But many trees have been cut since then, Muretta said, and now the landfill stinks the majority of each week. Those odors prompted state environmental officials to more closely monitor Chrin, again cited earlier this month for not operating by the rules of its permits.

Despite the violations, the supervisors may approve the rezoning plan, which would bring the landfill and its trucks, chemical storage tanks and perhaps a transfer station closer to neighborhoods and the Murettas' home. Chrin offered to buy their property in 2007, Muretta said, but the deal fell through.

The company purchased all but one of the plots surrounding the Murettas between 1999 and 2005, according to county records. A .26-acre property owned by Barbara and Leroy Hall would also be rezoned under the plan; they could not be reached for comment. The Lehigh Valley Planning Commission recommended against rezoning the residential land, but the supervisors chose not to change course.

Chrin spokesman Brian Leverington declined to discuss any offers but said the company prides itself on being a good neighbor.